Silhouettes Fall
by A Vague Shape In The Dark
Summary: Laura visits Harold during winter. Note: the Laura I've written is based on the information given in The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer.


_Pour life into me and I shall live as before when our bodies touched  
_  
_ - E.M. Forster, Dr. Woolacott_

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~o~**O**~o~

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The violence in the sound of a car door closing shut resounded in Laura's ears long after the action had completed behind her. Contending with it she closed her eyes, and in her created darkness was calmed until her steps were taken from her as she slid on a thin layer of ice covering the cement walkway. Steadying herself, she noticed that a distorted line of grey appeared as though a river between hardened builds of chopped ice and snow leading to the Tremond residence. No one, however, had bothered to clear a path to the second small house within the same lot. Those responsible for the clearing knew that the man inside did not come out, and rarely received visitors, so it was next to unnecessary - a waste - to spend time removing his snow. Knowing this without having to be told made Laura disquieted, sad, but at the same time eager to see Harold.

He was always happy to see her.

Laura repositioned the bag of groceries in her arms before she knocked against the cold glass of his apartment door. Waiting, she took in the scene she found herself a part of; snow was making the sky overhead a sheet of white, its flakes gathering as dust on the contents of the paper bag. The morning was cold as she breathed it in, as its wind hit her face. Broken and edgeless clouds paced above; their sister pattern seen in the haze of the falls outside the Great Northern.

With a sharp turn she faced the nearest window, anticipating some sudden sign of life behind swaying blinds, but there was no movement, no sound. Only discontent.

In the past she had discovered she could at times hear, from beneath the door and blue frames of Harold's apartment, soft music emanating in league with the wind and chill of night. It made her, for a second as she approached, feel even more alone than she had before she'd set out. Thankfully, this visit was made without any such feeling, as in the light of day no music could be heard to escape.

Shifting her weight she knocked again, soon hearing his approaching footsteps, the floorboards softly creaking as his weight passed over them. The door opened, framing Harold, his confused face. Warmth exuded from beyond and within. "Laura, I wasn't expecting you," he murmured, pleasantly.

"You didn't even check to see who it was before you opened the door, Harold," Laura said teasingly as she stepped inside, "that's so unlike you."

Harold in reflection looked to his crossed hands. "I could sense that it was you."

He took the bag from her arms as she entered, and placed it on a table by the door. As Laura filtered to the soul of the house, Harold briefly inspected what he'd been given, lifting partially from brown confines the thin box of a frozen dinner.

"I heard on the radio that we're really supposed to get dumped on tonight... So I brought some extra groceries just in case," Laura explained.

In a shallow breath Harold mouthed his reply then realized he should fully make known his sentiments. "That was very thoughtful of you, Laura. Thank you." Excited to see her, Harold, in slow, hulking movements, wrapped his arms around her wool covered waist and shoulders, feeling flakes of snow melt into his bare arms. "Oh, brrr, you're so cold."

Laura returned his embrace, closing her eyes and placing a hand to the base of his head as she pulled him closer, kissing his cheek. Moving quickly to his ear, she whispered, "I'm not cold inside."

While still in her arms, Harold's gaze darted over the room he did not see, as the tone of her voice left little to question. Backing away, self-conscious, he shivered and brushed hands over forearms, warming himself, laughing nervously in exhale.

Strangely pleased by his trepidation, Laura smiled as she removed her coat, draping it over the armrest of a chair near the bookshelf, leaving her standing in a casual white cotton dress and sweater. "God, I can't stay too long," she exclaimed, folding her arms, fingers pressing the ribs she could feel under skin. "I don't know how bad it's going to get."

Disappointed, Harold dug a nail into the tip of a finger. Moving to the blinds, he strained to see what the future might bring, free hand to his chest, immersed. Vacantly seeing orbs of white as they flew past his leaning outline and grave features, Laura asked, "When was the last time you were out in the snow?"

"Me?" Harold repeated, letting go the blinds and pointing to himself. "Oh well, it's been quite some time." He said this knowing that nothing had changed since he was last lost among drifts. His memories, in this case, were enough; those of walking between buildings in the wake of a storm, pulling closer his collar as wind hit his face. His fingers numb despite gloves. "There isn't much to tell. I'd rather hear about your day, Laura, especially since you can't stay long," he confessed nervously.

Laura rubbed her lips together in a sneaky grin before curiously searching his raised hands, which were covered in dark powder. He looked also to his hands, gesturing with the tilt of his head, a hand motioning limply behind his shoulder, helplessly, by means of explanation.

"You were watering your plants when I knocked, weren't you?" Laura ventured to guess. Without need of an answer she moved quickly to the room of glass. Opening the door, she stepped inside. "Let me help you. We can talk in here."

"Oh, no, I can wait till later to tend to them."

"Come on, let's go. Or do you not trust me?"

Mouth dry, he nodded. He trusted her. And acting on this trust he followed, halting only once he was beside her still form. Before the interruption of her knock Harold had moved a few orchids and cacti from their normal resting places to the sink countertop to make ready for watering.

With the edge of the counter pushing into her stomach, Laura considered her lined options before selecting an orchid whose body was a fusion of green and pinks. "I like this one. And I know how to water it, you showed me before." Laura raised the plant to Harold's beaming face.

"The Lady Slipper. Yes."

Laura quickly became a profile as she devoted herself to the roots of the plant. "I'll do just this one, okay? Because I don't want to mess up."

"You won't 'mess up', Laura."

She exposed her teeth in a laugh at herself. An elaborated response she did not wish to share.

"You want to hear about one of my ways?" She asked abruptly, focusing on the task at hand, her voice on the verge of laughter. "I'm afraid the story's not going to be very exciting."

"I'm sure that isn't the case. I'd love to hear whatever you'd like to tell me."

"Okay," Laura replied, sighing, "well, as you should know by now, most of the guys that go to One-Eyed Jack's are as sleazy as the place itself... but, I have fun toying with them." She shrugged, as though she were alone and the only one available to comment. "Sometimes I like to turn the tables a bit, make it where I'm fully clothed and they're the vulnerable ones, laying there naked, staring up. Anticipating more." Laura paused as she let water drain from the orchid and placed the damped plant on a shelf. She pointedly looked in Harold's eyes as she turned, handing him the bottled water as he took her place.

She moved to the wall in a corner close to him, her arms crossed, leaning. Recounting the past her gaze fell on crowded shelves and to the rafters above; to the tiny webs forming in patches Harold couldn't reach.

"And then, when they're so tense I can feel it, I brush my fingers under their belly, just above their penis. Being careful not to touch anywhere else as my hand goes over them... I love to feel them shiver all over as I do this." She faintly laughed. "The emptiness between the hips is a favorite of mine because nothing's there but the thought of more. It's almost magic."

Laura's view was of Harold's back, but she noticed the way he paused to catch her words like breaths, lingering in some cases to absorb or to release them. How he in glances looked to her from the corner of his eye, then hurriedly turned away, ashamed to find her watching.

"I like to think, from where my hand is, an area without sin, that when I lean in and kiss them as they're gasping, what I am taking into myself is their goodness." Laura, lost, placed a hand over the skin of her chest, as if over a cell housed under flesh. "I swear I feel it enter me in soft rasps, like a ghost."

After a pause, Laura playfully asked, "Are you thinking of me with one of men from One-Eyed Jack's, Harold?" Noticing that he was away as well, she added, "thinking of me doing things to you. With you. Because it's fine. I want you to think that way."

Harold stammered. He did not like being put on the spot. Being made to confess without words, even, but the tone of his skin. When Laura gave details of her encounters, he tried never to picture her men. He did not want to see the faces of those who would treat a woman the way in which Laura often related she was treated. But he knew asking her to stop going to One-Eyed Jack's was out of the question. She never listened.

In the memories she gifted him with Harold saw her as she stood before him reciting her past, fixed on how deeply she was able to delve into echos she could not ever fully live again. He saw beyond what she wanted him to see, or to feel. She would with almost every visit leave him with the difficulty of recovering from the devastation of her life. By thriving despite the decay of men, she was to him, his heart, a burning ember in in a sea of ash.

"When I'm alone I think of you like that... doing things," Laura confessed as she twisted from side to side, her arms crossed, one pushing lower another sleeve. Pulling him backwards by the belt loops of his trousers, Laura drew Harold to her place by the wall.

"I want you to do this for me," she said, taking his hand, clutching it tightly by the bends of his fingers and placing it under the circle of her collar, beside a clavicle. She moved lower until Harold quickly regained his senses and removed his hand from hers and out from under her clothes, letting it rest against his own chest. She scoffed. "Harold, why do you keep wanting to see me? You won't even let me get close to you."

"I want to see you because I like you."

"Me? What am I, Harold? Can you tell me what's inside!? What I feel. You don't know me," she ended with a sneer.

"I do, Laura. You're kind -"

"You're thinking of another Laura."

"No," Harold assured her, "the whole of my care is for you as you are."

Laura in a low tone hummed as her emotions oddly, sporadically, faded. Acting as though seconds ago she had not heard him, she moved her hold to his suspenders near shoulders, pushing her hands under their elastic; feeling what she was not allowed to see. "Oh, but Harold, if you're worried, know that I would never steal anything from you." Her voice left her throat in a deepened laugh, her eyes, however, created the setting for another mood.

Without warning she pressed herself to him and drowsily a hand went over the hem of Harold's shirt, to the waistband of his trousers. Covering as well she could the place without sin. With a kiss she seized his shock, and as a plume of smoke she drew from it, like a vampire to his involuntary reaction. His eyes from under lids became white as he was drawn into the moment, into Laura, but as a cord the pull soon snapped.

Laura knew he'd returned. She wanted to continue, but stopped on her own accord. When she withdrew he was at first met by her tired, smiling eyes, then in an instant they as watercolors shifted to remorse. She thought she could already feel his essence inside her, shooting upwards in the solid line between her breasts. With this spark she knew it was wrong to have a fragment of Harold mixed with the depraved spirits of those previously consumed. Despite tinges of regret, the thrill of the theft resonated warmly in the cradle of her pelvis.

She laughed at her own madness, biting her lip; tears in her eyes, her nose running. "I saw myself in a dream do the same to BOB. It made him weak and me sick. But now I think BOB might have been telling me to do it. I shouldn't have done it to you. I'll give it back. I'll give it back. I swear I'll find a way," she panicked, balling the fabric of his shirt.

Harold, still recuperating, frightened, took her hand, aware of how shaken she was and of the fact she was speaking of his supposed stolen innocence. "It's yours. Keep it, Laura, as a gift."

"How can it be a gift when it was stolen?"

"It wasn't. It was already yours... I just couldn't find a way to give it to you."

"But..."

"That," he gestured, to the air, something invisible between them, then to her core, "that belongs to you. Take it. In you I can leave. Stay with you outside these walls."

"To keep me safe?"

"To keep you company, a-and try to protect you."

Laura brought his left hand to her stained cheek, kissing a line in his palm. Moved, Harold cupped her face, his lips touching softly the temple along her hair.

"Someday I'll give it back. I promise," Laura said as she pulled herself together, wiping the remaining tears from her eyes and cheeks, leaving him. Mind unclouded, she stirred. "I've stayed too long, I have to go." She hurried past him and into the living room, pulling on her coat. Harold like a shadow followed and placed his hands on her back, over her arms, asking her - without avail - to stay.

While standing in the open door Laura's black coat made her a picture in the blinding light. She sadly looked back on his apartment. "Sometimes I think we're more alike than we realize."

Before Harold could think to reply she was beyond him, outside the fence, the station wagon gone.

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o~o~O~o~o  
**February 23rd**  
o~o~O~o~o

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Harold awoke without cause. All was still. Not even the wind could be heard through the trees. As fear began with pulse, he realized a warmth hovered over him. "Laura...," he whispered her name to the shadows of his room, smoothing under his hand the blanket on his chest. "Laura." Subconsciously he hoped she would manifest from the pools of darkness she insisted lived inside her.

Staring to the reaches of his room, Harold believed he saw Laura's outline stepping toward him, and longed for her to end his unease, but the warmth above him soon dissolved into nothingness, along with her outline, and in a chill he knew she was gone. She was dead. All of her fear founded. A stab of pain erupted in a wave and quickly bled throughout him. New wounds incapable of healing were made to his head and heart.

He didn't think he could move, only to fold in on himself, to face sheets; his mouth and nose pressed to their patterns as he sobbed, incoherently weighting them with his sorrow.

The pain of losing Laura dived further as a stake, and suddenly he was by force prevented from taking air. In confusion, in sickness, he did nothing, only attempt to let stifle his heart, his tears.

Driven by an urging not his own, his lips parted and he felt enter his lungs a shattering breath; that once inside was made to stop his mourning.

Laura had come to kiss him goodbye.

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~o~**O**~o~


End file.
